The term protofeminist is sometimes applied to a woman in a philosophical tradition anticipating modern feminist concepts, who lived in an era when the term "feminist" was unknown,[1] that is, prior to the 20th century.[2][3] The precise use of the term is disputed, 18th-century feminism and 19th-century feminism being also subsumed under "feminism" proper.

Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them?

The Republic states that women in Plato's ideal state should work alongside men, receive equal education and share equally in all aspects of the state. The sole exception involved women working in capacities which required less physical strength.[5]

In the Middle East during the Middle Ages, an early effort to improve the status of women occurred during the early reforms under Islam, which granted women greater rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.[6] Women were not accorded with such legal status in other cultures, including the West, until centuries later.[7]The Oxford Dictionary of Islam states that the general improvement of the status of Arab women included prohibition of female infanticide and recognizing women's full personhood.[8] "The dowry, previously regarded as a bride-price paid to the father, became a nuptial gift retained by the wife as part of her personal property."[6][9] Under Islamic law, marriage was no longer viewed as a "status" but rather as a "contract", in which the woman's consent was imperative.[6][8][9] "Women were given inheritance rights in a patriarchal society that had previously restricted inheritance to male relatives."[6]Annemarie Schimmel states that "compared to the pre-Islamic position of women, Islamic legislation meant an enormous progress; the woman has the right, at least according to the letter of the law, to administer the wealth she has brought into the family or has earned by her own work."[10]

Though there have been some who have claimed that is evidence of matrilineality in pre-Islamic Arabia, from the Amirites of Yemen to the Nabateans in Northern Arabia.[11] Some have speculated that Mohammed's had a motivation that was precisely to remove matrilineality and install a purely patriarchal system to which they attribute to being witness today. Shulamith Shahar believed that his wife Khadijah was the last successful businesswoman one could find in Arabia. And that there was evidence that Khadijah was the norm, not the exception, before Mohammed's rule over Arabia. That after Muhammed's revolution, the Arabian businesswoman disappears. She believes that it is likely that Muhammed specifically targeted the matrilineal system and replaced it with what she believes as the most a strictest patrilineal system ever witnessed. Far from being a "proto-feminist", Muhammed would therefore instead be the one who removed rights that at time where widely available to women both in Europe and in Asia.[12]

As for sexism, the common law long denied married women any property rights or indeed legal personality apart from their husbands. When the British applied their law to Muslims in place of Shariah, as they did in some colonies, the result was to strip married women of the property that Islamic law had always granted them — hardly progress toward equality of the sexes.[13]

Whilst in the pre-modern period there was not a formal feminist movement, nevertheless there were a number of important figures who argued for improving women's rights and autonomy. These range from the medieval mystic and philosopher Ibn Arabi, who argued that women could achieve spiritual stations as equally high as men [14] to Nana Asma’u, daughter of eighteenth-century reformer Usman Dan Fodio, who pushed for literacy and education of Muslim women.[15]

[Consider] what some women do when people gather with a shaykh to hear [the recitation of] books. At that point women come, too, to hear the readings; the men sit in one place, the women facing them. It even happens at such times that some of the women are carried away by the situation; one will stand up, and sit down, and shout in a loud voice. [Moreover,] her 'awra will appear; in her house, their exposure would be forbidden — how can it be allowed in a mosque, in the presence of men?

The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 was a rebellion of the late Middle Ages against British serfdom, and many women played prominent roles in it. June 14, 1381 Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury Simon of Sudbury was dragged from the Tower of London and beheaded. The leader of the group was Johanna Ferrour who ordered this violent action due to Sudbury's harsh poll taxes.[29] Ferrour also ordered the beheading of the Lord High Treasurer, Sir Robert Hales, for his role in the poll tax.[30] In addition to leading these rebels, Ferrour burned down the Savoy Palace and stole a duke’s chest of gold. The Chief Justice John Cavendish was beheaded by Katherine Gamen, another female leader.[30]

According to an Associate Professor of English at Bates College, Sylvia Federico, women often had the strongest desire to participate in revolts, especially this one in particular. These women did everything that the men did; they were just as violent, if not more in their actions in order to rebel against the government. Johanna Ferrour is not the only female who was a leader within this revolt, there were quite a few more involved—one woman was indicted for encouraging an attack against a prison at Maidstone in Kent, while another female leader was responsible for the robbing of a multitude of mansions, which frightened servants so much that they did not feel safe enough to return afterwards. Although there were not many female leaders within this rebellion, there was a surprisingly large amount of women who were merely a part of the crowd. For instance, there were seventy female rebels in Suffolk.[31]

The women who were involved in this rebellion had valid reasons for desiring to participate, and in some instances, to take on the role of leader. The poll tax of 1380 was much tougher on married women and because of this ridiculousness it is not the least bit surprising that women were as violent as men, if not more, in regards to their involvement in the peasants’ revolt. The various extreme acts of violence displayed by these women exhibit their mounting hatred towards the government.[31]

Simone de Beauvoir wrote that "the first time we see a woman take up her pen in defense of her sex" was when Christine de Pizan wrote Épître au Dieu d'Amour (Epistle to the God of Love) and The Book of the City of Ladies, at the turn of the 15th century.[32]Catherine of Aragon, the first official female Ambassador in European history, commissioned a book by Juan Luis Vives arguing that women had a right to an education, and encouraged and popularized education for women in England during her time as Henry VIII's wife.

Renaissance humanists such as Vives and Agricola argued that aristocratic women at least required education; Roger Ascham educated Elizabeth I, who read Latin and Greek and wrote occasional poems, such as On Monsieur's Departure, that are still anthologized. Queen Elizabeth I was described as having talent without a woman's weakness, industry with a man's perseverance, and the body of a weak and feeble woman, but with the heart and stomach of a king.[33] The only way she could be seen as a good ruler was for her to be described with manly qualities. Being a powerful and successful woman during the Renaissance, like Queen Elizabeth I meant in some ways being male, a perception that gravely limited women's potential as women.[33]

Women's sole role and social value was reproduction.[34] This gender role defined a woman's main identity and purpose in life. Socrates, a well-known exemplar of the love of wisdom to the Renaissance humanists, said that he tolerated his first wife Xanthippe, because she bore him sons, in the same way one tolerated the noise of geese because they produce eggs and chicks.[35] This analogy perpetuated the claim that a woman's sole role was reproduction.

Marriage during the Renaissance defined a woman. She was who she married. An unmarried woman was the property of her father, and once married, she became the property of her husband. She had few rights, except for privileges granted by her husband or father. Married women were required to obey their husbands and were expected to be chaste, obedient, pleasant, gentle, submissive, and, unless sweet-spoken, silent.[36] In William Shakespeare's 1593 play, The Taming of the Shrew, Katherina is considered unmarriageable due to her headstrong and outspoken nature, in contrast to her mild-mannered sister Bianca. Katherina is seen as a wayward woman – a shrew – who needs to be tamed into submission. When Petruchio tames her, she readily goes to him when he summons her, almost like a dog. Her submissiveness is applauded, and the crowds at the party accept her as a proper woman since she is now "conformable to other household Kates".[37]

Education was an element celebrated by society. Men were encouraged to attend college to acquire knowledge in many subjects, but the education of women–who were expected to become obedient wives – was almost unheard of. A woman named Margherita, living during the Renaissance, learned to read and write at the age of about 30 so there would be no mediator for the letters exchanged between her and her husband.[38] Although Margherita did defy gender roles, she became literate not in order to become a more enlightened person, but because she wanted to be a better wife by gaining the ability to communicate with her husband directly. When a woman did involve herself in learning, it was certainly not the norm. In a letter to Lady Baptista Maletesta of Montefeltro in 1424, the humanist Leonardo Bruni wrote: "While you live in these times when learning has so far decayed that it is regarded as positively miraculous to meet a learned man, let alone a woman".[39]

Bruni thought that women had no need of an education because they were not engaged in the social forums in which educated discourse is required. In the same letter he wrote,

For why should the subtleties of...a thousand...rhetorical conundra consume the powers of a woman, who never sees the forum? The contests of the forum, like those of warfare and battle, are the sphere of men. Hers is not the task of learning to speak for and against witnesses, for and against torture, for and against reputation.... She will, in a word, leave the rough-and-tumble of the forum entirely to men."[39]

The famous Renaissance salons that held intelligent debate and lectures were not welcoming to women. This denial of access to public forums led to problems for educated women and contributed to the unlikelihood that a woman would obtain an education in the first place.

The 17th century saw the development of many nonconformist sects, such as the Quakers, which allowed more freedom of expression to women than the established religions. Noted feminist writers on religion and spirituality included Rachel Speght, Katherine Evans, Sarah Chevers and Margaret Fell, a founding member of the Quakers.[42][43][44] In general, though, women who preached or expressed opinions on religion were in danger of being suspected of lunacy or witchcraft, and many, like Anne Askew, who was burned at the stake for heresy,[45] died "for their implicit or explicit challenge to the patriarchal order".[46]

Burning of witches

In France and England, feminist ideas were attributes of heterodoxy, such as the Waldensians and Catharists, rather than orthodoxy. Religious egalitarianism, such as that embraced by the Levellers, carried over into gender equality, and therefore had political implications. Leveller women mounted large-scale public demonstrations and petitions for equal rights, although dismissed by the authorities of the day.[47]

The 17th century also saw more women writers emerging, such as Anne Bradstreet, Bathsua Makin, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, Lady Mary Wroth,[48][49] and Mary Astell, who depicted women's changing roles and made pleas for their education. However, they encountered considerable hostility, as exemplified by the experiences of Cavendish, and Wroth whose work was not published till the 20th century.

Seventeenth-century France also saw the rise of salons, cultural gathering places of the upper-class intelligentsia, which were run by women and in which they participated as artists.[50] But while women were granted salon membership, they stayed in the background, writing "but not for [publication]".[51] Despite the limited role played by women in the salons, Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought them a "threat to the 'natural' dominance of men".[52]

Mary Astell is frequently described as the first feminist writer. However, this depiction fails to recognise the intellectual debt she owed to Anna Maria van Schurman, Bathsua Makin and other women who preceded her. She was certainly one of the earliest feminist writers in English, whose analyses are as relevant today as in her own time, and moved beyond earlier writers by instituting educational institutions for women.[53][54] Astell and Aphra Behn together laid the groundwork for feminist theory in the seventeenth century. No woman would speak out as strongly again, for another century. In historical accounts Astell is often overshadowed by her younger and more colourful friend and correspondent Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

The liberalisation of social values and secularisation of the English Restoration provided new opportunities for women in the arts, an opportunity that women used to advance their cause. However, female playwrights encountered similar hostility. These included Catherine Trotter, Mary Manley and Mary Pix. The most influential of all[54][55][56] was Aphra Behn, the first Englishwoman to achieve the status of a professional writer.[57] She was a novelist, playwright, and political propagandist.[58] Although successful during her lifetime, Behn was often vilified as "unwomanly" by 18th-century writers like Henry Fielding and Samuel Richardson.[58] Likewise, the 19th century critic Julia Kavanagh said that "instead of raising man to woman's moral standards [Behn] sank to the level of man's courseness".[59] In the 20th century, Behn gained a wider readership and critical acceptance. Virginia Woolf praised her career and wrote, "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn...for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds".[60]

In continental Europe, important feminist writers included Marguerite de Navarre, Marie de Gournay, and Anna Maria van Schurman who mounted attacks on misogyny and promoted the education of women. In the New World the Mexican nun, Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651–1695), advanced the education of women particularly in her essay "Reply to Sor Philotea".[61] By the end of the seventeenth century women's voices were becoming increasingly heard at least by educated women. The literature of the last decades of the century was sometimes referred to as the "Battle of the Sexes",[62] and was often surprisingly polemic, such as Hannah Woolley's "The Gentlewoman's Companion".[63] However, women received mixed messages, for they also heard a strident backlash, and even self-deprecation by women writers in response.[citation needed] They were also subjected to conflicting social pressures, one of which was fewer opportunities for work outside the home, and education which sometimes reinforced the social order as much as inspired independent thinking.

^Maya Shatzmiller (1997), "Women and Wage Labour in the Medieval Islamic West: Legal Issues in an Economic Context", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient40 (2), pp. 174–206 [175–7].